Silkwave Voice

Silkwave Voice is an AI-powered transcription and note-taking application designed for macOS, providing on-device recording, transcription, and summarization of audio content. It targets users who need to capture and process meetings, lectures, podcasts, or other audio sources, emphasizing privacy by ensuring that all audio remains on the user's Mac. The tool requires macOS 26 or later and is available through the Mac App Store.

The application enables users to record audio directly from their microphone, capture system audio, or both simultaneously, making it suitable for scenarios such as Zoom calls, Google Meet sessions, or YouTube videos without the need for third-party loopback drivers. Users can also import existing audio files in formats including MP3, M4A, WAV, and FLAC, with support for importing multiple files at once and selecting the transcription language for each.

Transcription is performed in real time using Apple's on-device speech-to-text models, supporting more than ten languages such as Cantonese, Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. The tool also offers speaker identification as a post-recording step, labeling transcript segments with speaker names and recognizing familiar voices in future recordings. This feature is optional, runs entirely on the user's Mac, and does not send voice profiles off-device.

For summarization, Silkwave Voice integrates ChatGPT via Apple Intelligence, providing structured summaries that highlight key topics, action items, and decisions. Summaries are generated through a Shortcut integration, and users are always prompted before any data is sent, with only transcript text—not audio—shared for context. Additionally, users can interact with their recordings through an AI chat feature, enabling follow-up questions, quote extraction, clarification of decisions, and drafting of follow-up emails, with conversation history saved per recording.

Other features include menu bar quick access for controlling recordings and switching languages, comprehensive search across titles, transcripts, and summaries with keyword highlighting, and a dark theme to match macOS system appearance. There are no subscription fees, and all processing is handled locally on the user's device, maintaining user privacy throughout.